What's the Rush to Marriage and Babies?

Uploaded 07/02/2009

So me and Platy (the lovely and talented) were talking on this meebo widget which I've grown to love, and somewhere along the way the topic of "marriage" came up.

Don't worry fellas, we're not tying the knot, you can still virtually fantasize about what your life would be like if you and platypuss got married and had awesome pot smoking canadian babies together.

But I digress.

I have always had a couple of problems with the entire marital institution, and have just never really understood the big rush towards marriage and childrens and the suburban lifestyle etc. I mean, I'm 23 years old, I've just begun a career path, and personally have no desire to even fantasize about being married right now. Yet not a day goes by where I don't hear about someone I graduated highschool with not only getting married, but having their first child. I mean, really?? at 23?? REALLY?!

I have so much that I want to do in my life that I don't think I could possibly accomplish with children. I want to travel and see the world, I want to start my own business, I want to spend a year living low rent on a beach surfing and working at a local bar somewhere tropical...i can't possibly do any of that with kids, and there's no shot i'm getting it done before I'm 30. Granted, I could do some of this stuff with a wife, but call me shallow if you want, I'm going to want to explore the vaginas of the world a little bit since I'm gonna be all over the place anyway!

I mean, just look at the idea of marriage in and of itself. We're humans, our tastes and preferences change on a daily basis, sometimes without us even wanting them too. I mean 2 years ago if you put a bowl of brussel sprouts in front of me i would have literally vomited down your throat, now you put that same bowl in front of me, and i began to salivate because i think they're fucking delicious. And the reverse happened with cabbage, which is weird, cause they kinda taste the same.

You're telling me that I'm supposed to dedicate myself to someone at the age of 23...and still be with that person, and love them, and appreciate them, and enjoy them, when I'm 80?? I don't even like the same stuff I liked earlier today, yet I'm supposed to still want to be with someone 40 years after we first met? I mean, how many years in a row can you experience the same shit before you start to get sick of it?

There's always the variable of true love and all that fairytale bullshit, but personally, I can only follow that mentally for so many feet before I start to give up on it cause its so goddamn cheesy. "oh i fuckin love him so much, I'm gonna stay with him forever, through all the beatings and cheatings and molestings of our children, through sickness and in health, I will love him forever!" Jesus...take a pill.

I dunno, maybe its just me, maybe i'm just a pessimest, but personally I find marriage and a family at this age to be a poor choice. You only get, what, 60 good healthy years on the planet, and I'm supposed to settle down after only using the first 15 or so where I was actually sentient enough to do things I wanted to do? Not for me, I'm not saying never, I'm just saying not right now.

If you've found true love, and it works for you at such a young age, hey, more power to you, but personally, i find it unrealistic that I'm gonna be happy with a choice I make at 23, or even 33, when I'm 83. Marriage goes against a lot of what I stand for just in the way it's structured, not in principle.

Take life slow, take life as it comes, and make sure you do everything you want to do while you're still able to do it. Nobody wants to be the 90 year old laying on their death bed saying "shoulda, woulda, coulda" and having regrets when it's too late to do anything about it. Never conform, and live your life.